Wolf_Kahn_2009

Biography

WOLF KAHN was born in Stuttgart, Germany in 1927 . When his family was forced to flee with the rise of Nazism, Kahn travelled through England to the US, arriving there in 1940 . In 1945 , after graduating from the High School of Music and Art in New York, and a brief stint in the Navy, Kahn studied for a short time with Stuart Davis and the printmaker Hans Jelinek. From 1947–49 , he studied in New York with Hans Hofmann, and became his studio assistant. In the summer of 1947 , Kahn followed Hofmann to Provincetown, persuading the older artist to waive his class tuition in exchange for work. He became the monitor in Hofmann’s classes and made friends with Jane Freilicher, Larry Rivers, Nell Blaine and Jan Muller, fellow artists also working in Provincetown that summer. Back in New York in the fall, Kahn’s work was included in a significant exhibition at the Seligmann Gallery curated by Clement Greenberg. Titled “New Provincetown ‘ 47 ,” the show focused on Hofmann students such as Rivers, Freilicher, Paul Georges, Kahn and others. In 1950 , Kahn enrolled in the University of Chicago, graduating in 1951 with a BA. From here he travelled west, working in the Rockies and Great Plains, Oregon and Wyoming.

the earliest cooperatives that made up the Tenth Street Galleries. Here he had his first one man show in 1953 which was reviewed by the artist/critic Fairfield Porter who was to become a lifelong friend. In 1957 he married the painter Emily Mason. Also that year, he joined the Grace Borgenicht Gallery where he exhibited regularly until 1995 . Kahn cur rently shows with Ameringer & Yohe in New York, and with other galleries throughout the United States. Kahn is the winner of numerous awards including a Fulbright Scholarship, a John Simon Guggenheim Fellowship, and an Award in Art from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. He is a member of the National Academy of Design, as well as the American Academy of Arts and Letters and has recently com pleted an appointment to the New York City Art Commission. He has travelled and painted in such diverse locations as Maine, New Mexico, Hawaii, Mexico, Greece, Italy, Kenya, and Egypt. Works by Wolf Kahn are in many important museum and private collections including the Metropolitan Museum of Art; the Whitney Museum of American Art; the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston; the Hirshhorn Museum; the Los Angeles County Museum; Minnesota Museum of American Art; the National Academy of Design and others.

Back again in New York, Kahn became one of the founding members of the The Hansa Gallery, one of